RnFR wrote:i was trying to figure exactly what was going on from the laney factory schem, but it's drawn like the 7th level of the light cycles from the Tron video game.
I have found it perfectly intelligible.
Basically that "Klipp" circuit is like the LTP “differential amp” phase inverter circuit (common cathode + common grid amps) of generic tube power amps, with the difference that only one of the outputs is in use and the plate resistor values are kinda skewed. Also, the B+ voltage powering the circuit is reduced considerably to lower the headroom and consequently have the circuit clipping a lot earlier than usually. In comparison to a typical common cathode gain stage the differential amp circuit will clip rather symmetrically and quite a bit softer.
There is no traditional gain control either. Instead the overdriven signal from the differential is mixed in with the clean signal (taken pre OD) using a potentiometer as a mixer. The potentiometer pans in between fully dirty or fully clean, providing various degrees of something “in between” at the other settings.
There is practically no low frequency attenuation at all before the overdrive stage so the dirty sounds will practically be that buzzy and fuzzy mud that early SS fuzz pedals as well are famous (or infamous) for. The fuzzyness is really not the circuit's fault but just an archetypical tone of any overdriven gain stage driven with full-bandwidth signal. Kinda really shows that having tubes and having a novel circuit doesn’t help if the foundation itself is a total failure.
Like everything, these amps have their fans but very few are among them.
